Fort Greene contains many examples of mid-19th century Italianate and Eastlake architecture, most of which is well preserved. It is known for its many tree-lined streets and elegant low-rise housing. Fort Greene is also home to the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, which, for over 80 years, was the tallest building in Brooklyn.[5] The neighborhood is close to the Atlantic Terminal railway station and has access to many subway services.

19th century

Settlement

Football at Fort Greene, circa 1872–1887

In 1801, the U.S. government purchased land on Wallabout Bay for the construction of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, stimulating some growth in the area. Ferry service linking Manhattan and Brooklyn launched in 1814, and Brooklyn's population exploded from 4,000 to nearly 100,000 by 1850.[citation needed] Fort Greene was known as The Hill and was home to a small commuter population, several large farms—the Post Farm, the Spader farm, the Ryerson Farm, and the Jackson farm—and a burial ground. As early as the 1840s the farms' owners began selling off their land in smaller plots for development. Country villas, frame row houses, and the occasional brick row house dotted the countryside, and one of them was home to poet Walt Whitman, editor of the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper.

Lafayette Ave Presbyterian Church, before 1933 when its steeple was shortened

Since the early 19th century, African Americans have made significant contributions to Fort Greene's development. New York State outlawed slavery in 1827 and 20 years later "Coloured School No. 1," Brooklyn's first school for African-Americans, opened at the current site of the Walt Whitman Houses. Abolitionists formed the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in 1857, and hosted speakers such as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman and also aided in the work of the Underground Railroad. Skilled African-American workers fought for their rights at the Navy Yard during the tumultuous Draft Riots of 1863 against armed hooligan bands. The principal of P.S. 67 in the same year was African American, and Dr. Phillip A. White became the first black member of Brooklyn's Board of Education in 1882. By 1870, more than half of the blacks in Brooklyn lived in Fort Greene, most of them north of Fort Greene Park.

As Manhattan became more crowded, people of all classes made Fort Greene their home. The unoccupied areas of Myrtle Avenue became an Irish shanty town known as "Young Dublin," In response to the horrible conditions found there, Walt Whitman called for a park to be constructed and stated in a column in the Eagle, "[as] the inhabitants there are not so wealthy nor so well situated as those on the heights...we have a desire that these, and the generations after them, should have such a place of recreation..." The park idea was soon co-opted by longtime residents to protect the last open space in the area from development.

However, The New York Times soon found that the area was too expensive for some, and that many in the area were penurious:

The poverty stricken condition of the inhabitants residing in the [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill district] of Brooklyn render it almost an unknown land.[7]

Focusing on a certain section of the east Brooklyn area defined as "between Flushing and DeKalb Avenues, as far east as Classon Avenue and as far west as Ryerson, extending across Fulton Avenue," the Times item said the real estate boom has resulted in class conflict among a majority of the area's longtime residents (identified as "renters or squatters") and its new neighbors—middle to upper income homeowners (identified as out-priced Manhattanites attracted to the spatial wealth of Brooklyn and able to afford the high price of its grand scale Neo-Gothic brownstones.) The paper further explained the conflict as one that had existed for some time, evidenced perhaps by a letter to the editor of a local Brooklyn paper published prior to the Times profile. The author, a new homeowner, wrote:

Sunset over the currently standing Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument in Fort Greene Park

Perchance there are but few places about more desirable for residences, or more pleasant for our evening walks...(but) on every side filthy shanties are permitted to be erected from which issue all sorts of offensive smells...It is indeed a fact that many of the inmates of these hovels keep swine, cattle, etc. in their cellars and not an unusual circumstance to witness these animals enjoying side by side with their owners the cheering rays of the sun; whilst offal and filth of the assorted family is suffered to collect about their premises and endanger the lives of those in their neighborhood by its sickening and deadly effluvia."[8]

Washington Park, renamed Fort Greene Park in 1897, was established as Brooklyn's first park in 1847 on a 30-acre (120,000 m2) plot around the site of the old Fort. In 1864, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, by now famous for their design of Central Park, were contracted to design the park, and constructed what was described in 1884 as "one of the most central, delightful, and healthful places for recreation that any city can boast." Olmsted and Vaux's elegant design featured flowering chestnut trees along the periphery, open grassy spaces, walking paths, a vine-covered arbor facing a military salute ground, a permanent rostrum for speeches, and two lawns used for croquet and tennis. The park's success prompted the creation of the larger Prospect Park. At the highest point of the park, The Prison Ship Martyrs Monument and vault was erected in 1908 to house the bones of some of the 12,000 Revolutionary soldiers and civilians whose bodies were thrown off British prison ships and later washed ashore. The monument, designed by the firm of McKim, Mead, and White, was the world's largest Doric column at 143 feet (44 m) tall, and housed a bronze urn at its apex. Restoration work on the monument was completed in the late 2000s.

The poet Marianne Moore lived and worked for many years in an apartment house on Cumberland Street. Her apartment, which is lovingly recalled in Elizabeth Bishop's essay, "Efforts of Affection", has been preserved exactly as it existed during Moore's lifetime—though not in Fort Greene. To see the Moore apartment you need to travel to Center City Philadelphia, to the Rosenbach Museum & Library. After her death, the furnishings and contents of Marianne Moore's apartment were purchased by the Rosenbach brothers, renowned collectors of literary ephemera. These pieces were then painstakingly reassembled in the top floor of their Philadelphia townhouse. Richard Wright wrote Native Son while living on Carlton Avenue in Fort Greene.

During World War II, the Brooklyn Navy Yard employed more than 71,000 people. Due to the resulting demand for housing, the New York City Housing Authority built 35 brick buildings between 1941 and 1944 ranging in height from six to fifteen stories collectively called the Fort Greene Houses. Production at the yard declined significantly after the war and many of the workers either moved on or fell on hard times. In 1957–58, the houses were renovated and divided into the Walt Whitman Houses and the Raymond V. Ingersoll Houses. One year later. Newsweek profiled the housing project as "one of the starkest examples" of the failures of public housing. The article painted a picture of broken windows, cracked walls, flickering or inoperative lighting, and elevators being used as toilets. Further depressing the area was the decommissioning of the Navy Yard in 1966 and dismantling of the Myrtle Avenue elevated train in 1969 which made the area much less attractive to Manhattan commuters.

From the 1960s through the 1980s, Fort Greene fought hard times that came with citywide poverty, crime, and the crack epidemic. While some houses were abandoned, artists, preservationists and Black professionals began to claim and restore the neighborhood in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Herbert Scott Gibson, a resident of the street called Washington Park, organized the Fort Greene Landmarks Preservation Committee which successfully lobbied for the establishment of Historic District status. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated two districts, the Fort Greene and BAM Historic Districts, in 1978. The Committee is now known as the Fort Greene Association. Spike Lee established his 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks company in Fort Greene in the mid 1980s, further strengthening the resurgence of the neighborhood. The Fort Greene Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 and expanded in 1984.[9]

21st century

New residential buildings at Ashland Place and Lafayette Street

The late 1990s and early 2000s saw the influx of many new residents and businesses to Fort Greene. While issues of gentrification are raised, Fort Greene stands to many as one of the best examples of a truly racially and economically diverse neighborhood with what The New York Times referred to as a "prevailing sense of racial amity that intrigues sociologists and attracts middle-class residents from other parts of the city". GQ describes it as "one of the rare racial mucous membranes in the five boroughs—it's getting white-ified but isn't there yet, and so is temporarily integrated".[10]

In 1994 Forest City Ratner promised that the project, which would be funded by taxpayers, would bring 2,250 units of affordable housing, 10,000 jobs, publicly accessible open space, and would stimulate development within ten years. So far the only completed structure is the $1 billion Barclays Center arena.[11]

New Fort Greene Park playground

Fort Greene and Clinton Hill have garnered attention for The Local, its experimental Hyperlocal blog produced by The New York Times in collaboration with CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. It relies much on community participation, as seen from contributions by locals, crowdsourcing opportunities and their Virtual Assignment Desk. Much of its content is written by CUNY students and members of the community.[12]

From 2001 to 2011, it was home to a popular bar called Moe's, frequented by journalists, artists, cooks, and people in the entertainment industry. It closed and was replaced by a new bar, controversially called Mo's.[13][14]

Demographics

Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of Fort Greene was 26,079, a decrease of 2,256 (8.0%) from the 28,335 counted in 2000. Covering an area of 378.73 acres (153.27 ha), the neighborhood had a population density of 68.9 inhabitants per acre (44,100/sq mi; 17,000/km2).[1]

Marianne Moore, poet who lived at 260 Cumberland Street from 1929 to 1966. Moore worshiped at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church and fought to save the boathouse and camperdown elm in Prospect Park.[23]

^Potts, Monica. "Ernest Crichlow, 91, Lyrical Painter, Dies", The New York Times, November 14, 2005. Accessed September 2, 2018. "Ernest Crichlow, an influential Harlem Renaissance painter whose depictions of African-Americans reflected social injustices and shifting social realities through much of the 20th century, died on Thursday at Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn. He was 91 and lived in Fort Greene, Brooklyn."

^Leland, John. "The East Village, in the 1980s and Looking Back", The New York Times, December 26, 2014. Accessed October 5, 2018. "Ken Schles, 54, spent the mid-1980s living and taking photographs in the East Village, and twice he edited his work into books — the first time when the photos were taken, and the second time more recently.... The resulting book, Night Walk (2014), is the retrospective glance of a father of two living in Fort Greene, in Brooklyn."

^Cotto, Andrew. "How Johnny Temple, Book Publisher and Rocker, Spends His Sundays", The New York Times, May 11, 2018. Accessed October 5, 2018. "Johnny Temple is the publisher and editor in chief of Akashic Books and also plays bass guitar in three bands. He lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, with his wife, Kara Gilmour, 48, a senior director at Gibney Dance, a nonprofit, their two sons, Arthur, 12, and Abraham (Abie), 10, and a Basenji/cattle dog mix named Cuppy. 'One of my goals in life is to leave Fort Greene as little as possible,' said Mr. Temple, 51, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1990."

^Robinso, Kara Myer. "How Uzo Aduba, Actor, Spends Her Sundays", The New York Times, June 5, 2015. Accessed September 2, 2018. "But it was not until she mastered the subway system that Ms. Aduba, 34, felt like part of the fabric. The actor, who lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, said that because she no longer consults the subway map she stands out less."

^Wright, Tolly. "Wyatt Cenac talks new Brooklyn-based web series", AM New York, October 1, 2017. Accessed September 2, 2018. "You’d be hard pressed to find a comedian that better personifies Brooklyn than Wyatt Cenac. The Fort Greene resident and former Daily Show correspondent came out with a comedy special on Netflix named Brooklyn in 2014, and his ongoing stand-up showcase “Night Train” at Littlefield is one of the best rooms in both Kings County and New York."

^Friedell, Nick. "Representing Brooklyn, Taj Gibson becomes NBA's first No. 67", ESPN, October 3, 2017. Accessed October 5, 2018. "Gibson, who grew up in the Fort Greene projects, wore No. 22 throughout the last eight seasons with the Chicago Bulls and Oklahoma City Thunder, but that number belongs to Andrew Wiggins in Minnesota. Gibson said one of the main reasons for the switch came after speaking to children in the same neighborhood where he grew up. Fort Greene is home to P.S. 67, Charles A. Dorsey School, in New York."